School workshops on the Stone Age to Iron Age at museums in England

To go alongside our post about museums with prehistoric collections to see, here is a list of museums in England that run workshops on a Stone Age to Iron Age theme. They are grouped by region, again, so hopefully you’ll find somewhere near you. Let us know if you know of a museum near you that runs workshops on prehistory in the comments below. We don’t take any responsibility for the quality of the workshops on offer.

London

The Museum of London at Barbican runs a great overview workshop that involves shadow puppet shows with a story and song for each period in later prehistory, the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age. Children then get to handle replica objects as featured in the story, as well as real archaeological objects from London.

The Museum of London’s London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC for short) in Hackney also runs workshops for schools looking at real objects from the Stone Age to Iron Age found in London to find out what they tell us about people’s lives in prehistory.

South-east

scrapbook 004The Chiltern Open Air Museum near Amersham offers a Stone Age workshop (which our director Kim Biddulph developed for them) exploring the skills and lives of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers where children get to make fire, shelters, bramble or nettle cord and pigments. You can then contrast this with a workshop set in the Iron Age roundhouse where children grind wheat, make bread, churn butter and wattle fences.

Luton Culture offers three prehistory sessions either at the Stockwood Discovery Centre or in school. One is object and chronology based, the second looks at the changes from hunter-gatherer to farmer and the third gets the children creating their own prehistoric art using natural pigments and brushes.

St Albans Museum isn’t all about the Romans, they also run a Prehistory Explorers session in local schools where children find out about how archaeologists work and how they piece together evidence about the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age.

Celtic Harmony are near Hertford and have a reconstructed Iron Age village where children can learn all about life as an ancient Briton. They run a range of workshops where children can become warriors, farmers or hunters

Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford offers a Stone Age to Iron Age workshop that we developed for them! Children will work out from the clues on the timeline what period their collection of objects comes from and then hunt around the museum for objects to help them solve everyday problems using only the materials available to them in either the Stone Age or the Metal Age.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford runs a workshop on Life in Prehistoric Britain, which gives children chance to handle artefacts and work out what they tell us about people’s lives and then hunt for objects on display in the museum. Children get to make a replica torc and take part in a prehistoric celebration.

The River and Rowing Musuem in Henley on Thames runs a workshop designed for Key Stage 2 pupils that covers the Stone Age to the Iron Age. It gives pupils the opportunity to handle prehistoric artefacts and have a go at cave painting.

Buckinghamshire County Museum in Aylesbury currently runs workshops that can be tailored to a time period including the Stone Age, such as exploring the objects from a burial in A Murder Mystery or comparing several time periods of Buckinghamshire in Time Travellers.

Knole Park in Sevenoaks, despite being better known for it’s medieval deer park and Jacobean house, I am reliably informed that they undertake Stone Age to Iron Age outreach sessions in schools and prehistory walks around the grounds.

Dover Museum focus on the Bronze Age as they have the remains of a Bronze Age boat in the museum. They run a drama workshop on Bronze Age community life, or craft workshops making replica boats or pots. They have set days for booking their workshops.

Braintree Museum offers a new Stone Age to Iron Age workshop designed for Key Stages 1 and 2 to carry out a mini dig, and handle archaeological collections. It also provides the opportunity to try some archaeological tools and try cave painting.

Lewes Castle in Sussex runs handling sessions for schools exploring changing technology from Stone to Bronze and all children handle real prehistoric artefacts from the collections.

Banbury Museum have developed a Time Traveler workshop designed for Key Stage 2 that maps changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age by creating a timeline and handling and investigating objects.

South-west

Kresen Kernow offers an innovative Prehistoric Cornwall workshop – free of charge – to schools right across Cornwall. Linked to the National Curriculum it highlights the social and technological changes which can be traced in Cornwall’s unique archaeology. Featuring a handling session and various activities linked to a site near to your school it will take your children on an immersive journey from the Neolithic to the end of the Romano-Cornish period. For more details see: https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/community-and-living/records-archives-and-cornish-studies/learning/formal-education/topics-and-themes/key-stages-1-2/

Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter run and Stone Age to Iron Age experience for schools that is led by a storyteller. It gives pupils the opportunity to handle genuine and replica artefacts as well as learning about their local environment. The session culminates in a drama performance.

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery runs a workshop on Bronze Age Dartmoor, focusing on the changes in technology in the Bronze Age, but also includes an overview of prehistory from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.

Salisbury Museum runs two workshops on prehistory. One is focused on the Amesbury Archer, a Bronze Age burial discovered near Stonehenge and now on display in the museum. Children get a chance to handle a replica costume of this person and try on prehistoric outfits themselves. In Surviving the Stone Age children are guided through making a survival game that they then play and see who manages to survive the Stone Age.

Wiltshire Museum in Devizes runs a workshop called Journeys into Prehistoric Wiltshire that get children handling objects found in the county and making replicas to take away.

Butser Ancient Farm runs school workshops on prehistory, Romans and Anglo-Saxons using their amazing collection of reconstructed houses including this Neolithic one below.

Andover Museum of the Iron Age

 

 

 

Poole Museum runs a workshop called Changing Societies in which the class is split in two and one experiences life as Stone Age hunter-gatherers while the other tries out the Iron Age farming lifestyle. They then get back together and swap notes.

Andover Museum of the Iron Age runs workshops on life in the nearby Danebury hillfort, looks in depth at one of the burials there and also runs a cross-curricular workshop looking at the materials used in the Iron Age.

East of England

Hoeing the fields

Hoeing the fields at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse

Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse in Norfolk runs a Neolithic Britain workshop where children get to recreate a hunt in the woods, try out ploughing with an ard and work with various tools.

 

 

 

 

 

Ipswich Museum in Suffolk offers a workshop called “How did life change during the Stone Age?” During this full-day visit pupils investigate, questions and compare two lifestyles in our prehistoric past. Artefacts, art and role-play bring the distant past to life.

The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge offers a multi-sensory prehistory session for schools, with object handling. Contact their outreach organiser via their schools learning web page.

Flag Fen near Peterborough is the site of a Bronze Age settlement and ritual platform on the edge of and going into the fens and is also the home of the Must Farm boats that were found recently. They run two sessions for primary schools, focused on prehistory and archaeology.

East Midlands

Derby Museum and Art Gallery runs Adventures in the Stone Age workshop focusing on how humans survived in Europe 40,000 years ago during the Ice Age and can include an optional make and take activity.

West Midlands

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery runs two prehistoric sessions with one including handling objects and the other providing arts and crafts activities. At Sarehole Mill children can make prehistoric shelters, do some digging and visit a real Bronze Age site.

Heritage Education in Warwickshire offers a day long workshop called Stone Age to Iron Age that they can come and deliver in the classroom. The workshop uses replicas of objects from Heritage and Culture Warwickshire’s archaeology collection.

North-east

Hull and East Riding Museum runs three different workshops on the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age.

Bronze Age axe head and mould. Image copyright Leeds Museums and Galleries.

At Leeds City Museum you can book a timeline workshop where children become the heads on a timeline of bodies from the Stone Age to the present day to get good chronological understanding. At the Discovery Centre down by the canal, there is a Stone Age to Iron Age workshop in which children can handle archaeological artefacts to find out about the prehistory of Yorkshire.

At Dig in York children get to take part in a mock excavation and discover objects. They can then look at burials and beliefs or houses over time from the Stone Age onwards.

At the Yorkshire Museum in York is a workshop called Prehistoric Progress which lets children explore artefacts from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages and work out what the major technological advances were, as well as do practical activities such as make shelters, pots and jewellery.

The Yorkshire Museum of Farming near York has an Iron Age roundhouse and teachers all about Stone Age and Bronze Age life including hunting, farming and making pottery.

The Bowes Museum in County Durham offers a Stone Age to Iron Age workshop specifically designed for Key Stage 2 pupils.

North-west

The Manchester Museum runs a workshops called The Mystery of the Thunderstone where children learn to excavate and record Stone Age and Roman artefacts to solve the mystery of what the thunderstone is.

At Tullie House in Carlisle children get to handle and record objects, role-play ceremonies inside stone circles with real and replica artefacts, and make their own lunula, a crescent moon shaped neck decoration from the Bronze Age.

Touchstones is a museum and discovery centre in Rochdale and runs Stone Age and Bronze/Iron Age workshops for schools. In the Stone Age workshop children make paint and pottery, and in the Bronze/Iron Age workshop they learn about making houses and weaving. They also offer an outreach session in schools and loan boxes of real and replica objects.

17 thoughts on “School workshops on the Stone Age to Iron Age at museums in England

  1. Ipswich Museum in Suffolk will be offering a new prehistory session from September – ‘How did life change during the Stone Age?’ focussing on mesolithic and neolithic lifestyles in suffolk, check out http://www.cimuseums.org.uk/schools for more details.

  2. Heritage Education in Warwickshire also offer a day long workshop called Stone Age to Iron Age that we can come and deliver in the classroom. The workshop uses replicas of objects from Heritage and Culture Warwickshire’s archaeology collection.

  3. Here at Luton Culture we offer three Prehistory sessions either at Stockwood Discovery Centre or in school. One is object and chronology based, the second looks at the changes from hunter-gatherer to farmer and the third gets the children creating their own prehistoric art using natural pigments and brushes.

  4. At the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, we offer a multi-sensory prehistory session for schools, with object handling.

    Thanks for this list – very useful!

  5. Hi Kim, great to see a list like this, but you could add the Yorkshire Museum of Farming / / Living History site at Murton, just off the York ring road on the A166.
    They have long done Viking, Roman, Iron Age etc. with full scale replica settlements including a roman fort, but recently created a Prehistory area with a Iron Age round house that they use also for Stone Age and Bronze age, with re-enactors in authentic garb, knappers etc.. They run on a shoestring and have bookings a year ahead or more but they should be on your list .

  6. Knole House in Sevenoaks Kent also offer an exciting Stone Age to Bronze Age outreach session for the classroom as well as an onsite prehistory walk around Knole Park.

    • Hi Jennifer,

      I’ll add Knole, thank you. We talked to them a couple of years ago about their plans so I’m glad they’re up and running now!

      Kim

  7. Pingback: Museums with Stone Age to Iron Age collections on display | Schools Prehistory and Archaeology

  8. Hi, Love the site, very informative, please can you add our new outreach workshop to the list? Kresen Kernow offers an innovative Prehistoric Cornwall KS 2 workshop – free of charge – to schools right across Cornwall. Linked to the National Curriculum it highlights the social and technological changes which can be traced in Cornwall’s unique archaeology. Featuring a handling session and various activities linked to a site near to your school it will take your children on an immersive journey from the Neolithic to the end of the Romano-Cornish period.
    It was developed in partnership with the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Historic Environment Record, Archives and Cornish Studies Service and Cornwall Archaeological Unit. It is offered as a free 90 minute workshop – in your classroom – to primary schools right across Cornwall. For more details see: https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/community-and-living/records-archives-and-cornish-studies/learning/formal-education/topics-and-themes/key-stages-1-2/

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